Peering into the future

At this early time of the year it is usual to try to look forward and ask ourselves what we expect from the 12 months ahead. Expecting can mean both anticipating and hoping for. I'm sure that, as individuals, we all hope for good health, peace and serenity, plus as much quality time as possible with our loved ones. To an extent, it is within our means to make such hopes come true. To another extent, it is not.

We may try to live healthy lives, but one never knows what lurks around the corner. We do our best to be serene, but others do not always let us achieve that. As for our loved ones, it us up to us individually to remember that they come first in our lives, before work, before other enjoyment. There can be no greater enjoyment than sharing whatever is there to be shared, which may include a few tears, with one's family.

Moving outside the personal box, we surely hope that as a people we will have peace. In that guise, it is within our ability to have peace in our time. We should aim to give order to our differences so as to achieve that.

Thank God, we are a healthy democracy. Such a political arrangement resonates, as it should, with the clash of contrasting ideas.

We should never forget, and resolve to do so with fresh vigour particularly as a new year starts, that it is valid to disagree, but we can do so without getting personal, with mutual respect. And, if we truly respect ourselves as thinking individuals, with an open mind, a readiness to recognise what is valid in the stand and line of those we disagree with.

There is no such thing as total disagreement. There are always shades of colours which, if we look closely, are not always as different as we stubbornly make ourselves believe them to be.

Broadening the view, we hope that the immediate world around us will not have too many new problems. That those we have carried forward with us from the old year will be resolved. That much we hope for, but what can we expect?

Unfortunately, I see our economy continuing to stutter through most of 2010, perhaps through the whole 12 months and beyond.

We are so dependent on the economies we deal with that whatever hits them affects us in higher proportion, given our vulnerability to external shocks.

Our trading partners should continue to recover from the recession which plagued them through most of 2009. Yet it will be a strange recovery, different from that which is gaining strength in the newer big economies, like China, India, Brazil and even sick Russia. The recovery in much of the European Union will not be employment-led. Rather the opposite.

Unemployment in the UK, France, Italy and Germany, already high, is expected to go up. That will surely affect our visible exports. They will recover from the lows of 2009, but not strongly so. Unemployment will also affect our tourist industry. The government is funneling considerable resources into that area. Air Malta, despite losses due to contingencies outside its power to control or minimise, continues to explore what new routes could benefit our tourism.

And the government will increase aid to low-cost carriers to expand their routes. Such focus on the carrying capacity is an essential priority. But there is little we can do to offset the effects of persistently high unemployment in our markets. Which is why I rather fear that the recovery in tourism forecast for the second half of 2010 may fail to materialise, or do so only weakly.

Meanwhile the tourism industry, like the rest of the economy and civil society, will be struggling to cope with new water and electricity tariffs, which from Friday have pushed up costs by 45 per cent or more. In that context one should worry that the cost of by-products of crude oil will rise further this year, because of the global recovery. It would seem that Enemalta has broadly secured its fuel requirements for 2010.

But possibly not so for Air Malta. And higher fuel costs will mean raised prices at the petrol pumps. Meanwhile, the sharp increase in water and electricity tariffs for the business sector will feed through into costlier consumer prices.

Expect, therefore, more inflation. Unemployment, rising throughout 2009, is unlikely to ease. In fact, it could grow further. Try as one might not to be bleak, the outlook is not rosy. The gloom of 2009 was relatively lifted by the repaving of St George's Square, opposite the palace, showing the readiness of our people to be entertained by small things. It was lifted further by the magnificent outturn of the L-Istrina campaign. It will take more than that to ease this year's outlook.

We shall, therefore, have to go back into our personal box, to do the best we can there. Our best chance for serenity lies in our homes. At least there we have each other to count on.